Recommended by Nick Malakhow

This is a beautiful, surprising, and delicately written piece with a keen eye towards its character's important intersectional identities. This ensemble cast has a bunch of amazing roles for teens of various backgrounds. It treats all of these characters with the respect they deserve and is a piece that is important and very appropriate for teens to read, see, perform, and interact with in any number of ways. It looks at queerness, betweenness, "otherness," and a whole host of important issues while focusing on relationships and positivity rather than trauma. So wonderful to see characters' queerness be matter-of-fact truth.

A tightly written, haunting piece that explores a distinct socio-political moment from a very human lens by focusing in on these two specific characters. The spare, desolate environment is somehow established by dialogue--really echoed in the lyrical, direct language. That said, there's also a whole lot of amazing design work that could be incorporated in this piece as well. Unsettling, darkly humorous at times, poignant, and, ultimately, heartbreaking. Quite the exploration of both personal and collective grief in the wake of social upheaval that provides no easy answers.

This is a moving, sharp, theatrical piece that powerfully juxtaposes the crack epidemic with the present opioid epidemic, and the racial implications and complexities of how each have been/are being handled. With a keenly intersectional eye on race and gender, Candrice Jones also explores the ways disenfranchised folks are pitted against once another in our country. Emarytus' narrative interjections heighten the theatrical artifice and simultaneously make us empathize with her. The piece also plays with chronology, comments on Reagan's weaponizing of drug enforcement over Black folks, and spins a poignant and unflinching examination of Emarytus' family.

Strafford straddles a beautifully balanced line between comedy and gutting drama here. In tackling huge themes like addiction, sexual abuse, and family trauma with these particular characters who cling to their use of humor like armor, Strafford succeeds in putting forth an extraordinarily human and important story in a way that doesn't exploit or sensationalize those serious topics. The tightly written piece is so well structured while still maintaining the naturalistic irregularities of human speech. I'd love to see this character-driven actors' dream of a piece in production.

I loved how this genre-defying play included elements of drama, dark satire/comedy, and horror. From a design perspective, the Others provide lots to work with in terms of clever staging, movement coordination, lighting, sound, visual effects, etc. The Others are also a clean and effective extended metaphor for the demons and baggage that infect old relationships and that we bring into new relationships. An insightful exploration of processing and moving past traumas, grief, and neuroses that uses a good deal of wit, fun, and theatricality.

Beautiful, expansive, theatrical, lyrical, and yet very human--these are qualities that I've definitely come to associate with Darcy Parker Bruce's work. The characters that I began to be invested in and care for in "The Place That Made You" see awesome development and journeys in this piece. The visual/aural/sensorily acute landscape (that heliotrope!) is so vivid and unique. The incorporation of music and liminal spaces--physical and emotional--make me feel like this would be an awesome piece to work on as any member of a production team--musician, actor, director, movement coordinator, set, light, sound designer. Super-layered and compelling storytelling.

Funny, unique, and human, "I Will Be Gone" is a haunting piece that straddles genres to explore universal themes of loss, bereavement, and loneliness. The small, nameless town (and the adjacent ghost town) is another key character in the piece, rendered so well through the distinctly-drawn and sympathetic characters. The reactions, interactions, and conversations in this play take nuanced and complex terms that you don't necessarily see coming, make them feel all the more organic and natural.

Funny, human, and so absolutely on point in the way it captures white privilege in action in customer service. Anyone who has ever had a comparable job will find their frustrations so clearly affirmed. Each human (callers included) is so well rendered and the atmosphere/location is a character in and of itself. The overall effect is of looking at a glorious and underrepresented cross-section of the working world, and the subtle and nuanced dramatic action is comprised of well-crafted small seismic shifts between people. A wonderful ensemble piece!

I am continually flabbergasted by how the ever prolific Rachel Lynett manages to churn out amazing new pieces that feel like they're speaking to the absolute current moment. This is a fast-moving piece that crackles with humor while it explores and tackles the complex and unsettling realities of cultural gatekeeping and anti-Blackness both within the Latinidad and the world at large, all with a deeply intersectional focus. These characters are incredibly well-defined, and I'm so excited to see how this piece continues to develop as it lives and breathes in readings, workshops, and productions.

Razor sharp satire that is essential reading and viewing. Stacey Rose has masterfully created a terrifying dystopia that presents not simply a "horrifying future," but rather a comprehensive exploration of current and historical anti-Black racism, white supremacy, white revisionist history, and the legacy of traumatic violence against Black bodies throughout the world but, especially in the United States. The storytelling is startlingly straightforward, while the piece is so incredibly nuanced, rich, and layered. Gutting and satirical and virtuosic.